The field of the invention is cosmetic color determination systems.
Systems of skin color determination are known for medical purposes. Systems such as that proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,671,735 to Chromatics Color Sciences International, Inc. (May 1994), the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety, attempt to use change in color to detect the presence of a medical condition. Abrupt changes in skin color are of particular concern. For example, a rapid change in skin color that exceeds a normal standard may indicate the presence of cancer.
Another system designed for medical applications is proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,554 to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (August 1986), the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. That system uses an infrared reflectance device to evaluate skin pallor. Such a system may be particularly valuable to indicate the onset of shock, jaundice, or other conditions.
Both of the systems described above illustrate the importance for accurate color determination systems in the medical field. Such medical systems typically derive their accuracy from a detailed analysis of an area of skin afforded by careful examination of small subsets or pixels of an area.
Systems of skin color determination are known for cosmetic purposes. However, with cosmetic systems, the need for accuracy is much less obvious. Color determination systems often attempt to match a cosmetic hair color or facial makeup with a person""s appearance in an attempt to enhance the person""s appearance. Early systems of analysis were performed by a person without the aid of a machine. When a person relies on his eyesight to perform a visual analysis, the results are often inadequate in comparison to the analysis done with the aid of a machine.
Machines are known to analyze a person""s hair, skin, or nail color for cosmetic purposes. However, to the best of our knowledge, such machines always capture an area of the body, and make a color determination based on an average of the whole area. Such a system seems reasonable at first glance because of the nature of cosmeticsxe2x80x94a single color is spread of an entire area of skin or applied to all of a person""s hair.
FIG. 1 shows a schematic of data reduction in a prior art cosmetic color analyzing system 100 in which data from a field of pixels 110 is summarized into RBG values 122 for the entire field 110, and then the RGB values 122 are interpreted as a cosmetic color 130.
Surprisingly, real world experience demonstrates the cosmetic color determined by such systems is frequently inaccurate because the system fails to do more than provide an average over the entire captured field. For example, a system of color determination may examine the hair of two people. One person may have one hundred per cent dark blonde hair. The other person may have half black hair and half gray (white) hair. A current system of cosmetic color determination may point to a dark blonde color for both people. Such a color determination is flawed because the hair colors of each person are entirely different. Thus a need exists for improved systems of cosmetic color determination.
One aspect of the present invention provides systems and methods in which a collector captures light as a field of pixels, a color analyzer analyzes a proper subset of the field to produce a plurality of color values, and a cosmetic analyzer uses the color values to produce a cosmetic color determination.
Another aspect of the present invention comprises a window having a light passage area, a color calibration region that is not coextensive with the light passage area, and a detectable product identification region. In a particular embodiment, the window, in addition to allowing the passage of light, has at least two other functions. The first function is to provide a color calibration region. The second function of the window is to provide a product identification region. In one aspect, the product identification region may be in the form of a trademark or other logo having a chemical that reacts to light.
A third aspect of the present invention is a system or method that combines the collector, the color analyzer, the cosmetic analyzer, and the window. Especially contemplated windows are preferred to be removably coupled to a housing comprising the collector. Such windows may interact with the collector to calibrate the color before every capture of light. The system of this aspect is designed to encourage hygiene by requiring an operator of the collector to change the window in response to a detectable chemical reaction.
Various objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention, along with the accompanying drawings in which like numerals represent like components.